


Come and Find Me in the Dark Now

by themetalspoon



Category: Supernatural, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Stiles, Canon Crossover, Canon-Typical Violence, Demons, Multi, Pack Feels, Panic Attacks, Past Cutting, Post Season/Series 02, just tagging that for warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-12 11:30:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/811092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themetalspoon/pseuds/themetalspoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Animal attacks have started up again in Beacon Hills, California, and Stiles knows it's not the Hale Pack. The Argents would like to hope it's not the Hale Pack, but Chris Argent can't find anything, so he calls an old friend who sends in some reinforcements and now it falls to Stiles to run interference between the Pack and the Hunters, keep Derek in line and Scott from silently worrying himself to death over Allison, and somehow find time to get his calculus homework done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Living Like It All Depends On You

**Author's Note:**

> This is unbeta-ed and totally all Casey and Gavin's fault! Blame them!  
> Fic title is from "On My Own" by Ashes Remain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from "Again" by Flyleaf.

Stiles gets a text from Allison on a Tuesday evening while he’s TRYING to focus on his calculus homework so he doesn’t fail his exam and failing miserably, tapping his pencil against his desk, swivelling in his chair, and just generally getting nothing done whatsoever.

 **From Allison Argent:** I’m coming over.

Oookay. Allison took Gerard’s death pretty hard and she’s been waffling between wanting to be part of the pack and outbursts of anger, like she hasn’t accepted that her grandfather was some sort of vengeance-fueled psycho-killer who tried to kill all her friends. Stiles understands denial and loss, especially of your mother, so he’s been maybe a little more friendly to Allison than the others have, but what else could he do? He’s a nice guy.

She arrives just as Stiles is walking down the stairs to wait for her on the porch. His dad is sitting in the living room and waves him past when Stiles says, “Allison’s coming over to work on calc with me,” while holding up his textbook, notebook, and calculator.

Before he can even say, “What’s up,” Allison has him by the arm and is dragging him to the opposite side of the porch from the closed living room window. “Woah, okay, pulling me is cool, too,” Stiles says, earning him a look. He takes a moment to pity her future children if Allison looks at them like that. Actually, he thinks he read something somewhere about guys instinctively being attracted to girls that remind them somehow of their mothers, and that look is Melissa McCall to a tee. Figures.

“What’s going on?”

“I thought you guys needed to know that some hunters came into town today to talk to my dad.” The words came out in a tumbled rush and she was obviously nervous.

“Do you know why?”

“You know my dad tries to keep me a little more in the dark now about things, after… after everything, but I heard them asking questions. About the attacks. Stiles, you’re sure it wasn’t one of them?”

“Allison, of course it wasn’t. We don’t know. Derek says there’s no other packs in the nearby area at all and that this isn’t the work of a wild animal, so we’re just as stumped as your dad.” Stiles is exhausted and doesn’t have the time or mental energy to deal with Allison’s mistrust of them. He wouldn’t lie to her and she ought to know that by now. He’s a terrible liar.

“Well… I just wanted you guys to be on your guard, because you know they all think it’s Derek who’s causing it, even if they don’t want to.” She turns away as if to leave but stops and puts a hand on Stiles’ arm. “Stiles… Just… Make sure everyone’s safe. When I was a kid, two of these guys and their dad showed up. The older one was around our age then and he and his dad helped my dad out with a hunt. They’re good, Stiles, maybe the best, and they won’t give up. I just want everyone to be safe.” For once, Stiles doesn’t hear the unspoken “especially Scott” in her voice and it makes him happy to know that she genuinely does want all of them to be safe.

“If you could pass the information on to Derek for me… I know he wants to talk to me as little as possible and I don’t want to worry Scott by telling him there are more hunters in my house.” Stiles nods and lets Allison walk away from his porch and slide into her car. He waits until she pulls out of the driveway and disappears around the corner to walk back inside.

“Allison’s gone?” His father looks up from the TV when Stiles walks in.

“Yeah, turns out she couldn’t help with what I needed.” He shrugs. “I’ll ask Lydia for help during lunch tomorrow.” His dad obviously doesn’t really believe him, but something in his eyes says he’s not going to question it. “I think Allison mostly offered so she could get out of her house for a while. She and her dad haven’t been getting along as well since… You know…” Stiles lets his voice trail off and his dad’s face softens entirely. Stiles hates himself for using Allison’s grief and loss to make his dad feel bad for her, but he suspects it might be the truth.

As soon as he gets back to his room, he tosses his books onto his desk and flops onto the bed and starts to compose a text to Derek.

 **To Derek Hale:** Allison says there are some new hunters in town.

 **To Derek Hale:** She says they’re here about the attacks.

Before he can send another text with the rest of the information, his window is shoved open and Derek hops in. “Holy shit!” Stiles clutches a hand to his chest and almost falls out of his bed. “What the hell?”

Derek shoots him a look and holds up his phone. “What the hell is this?” He asks. Stiles heaves a heavy sigh, pulling himself into a sitting position on the edge of his bed.

“Allison came by just now,” he began. “She said there were some new hunters in town that were asking her dad about the attacks. Says she met them once when she was a kid and that they’re maybe the best hunters there are.”

Derek nods and puts a hand on the window. “Chris will probably send them to you because you’re Scott’s best friend.” Stiles’s heart kicks up a notch. He doesn’t want to be the only one standing between hunters and his best friend, even if Scott hasn’t been around so much recently. Derek shoots him a look and disappears into the night just as Stiles opens his mouth to say something.

“Damn it, Derek!” He mutters, but goes back to his math homework, even though he can’t stop thinking about werewolves and hunters and maybe he should stop trying but Mrs. Green waits for no man, werewolf, or hunter, and Stiles would like to get into college. He doesn’t realize his heart is going a mile a minute until hands come down on his shoulders and he almost screams.

“Oh, my God!” He gasps out, whirling around his chair. “For fuck’s sake, Derek, can you not?”

“Your heart rate was going through the roof. I wanted to make sure you were alright.” The older man shrugs it off like it’s nothing, but Stiles is touched nevertheless.

Stiles stares at his unexpected houseguest. He means to say, “Thanks,” or maybe “I’m fine,” but it comes out as “Are you sick?”

Derek actually looks down at himself for a second as though to check if he’s sick or not before glaring at Stiles. “Next time I think you’re in danger, I’ll just leave you there to die, then,” he grinds out.

“No, dude, hang on,” Stiles says when Derek goes to leave again. “Got plans for tonight?” It hurts a little, how actually surprised Derek looks at the question, as though no one ever bothers to ask what he’s doing. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck and Stiles would almost swear that he blushes a little.

“Nothing concrete,” Derek hedges, and Stiles might not be a werewolf and he might not be a great liar, but he knows Derek’s lying through his teeth as surely as he knows that he’s not going to think about vectors and ships and knots one more time tonight, except with mild regret that he didn’t get more work done before getting distracted. This is unacceptable, though. Derek’s probably going to spend the night in his empty apartment or wandering around town all night, apparently listening to the heartbeats of humans in his pack and just generally being a creep.

Stiles stands up and shoves his hands in his pockets, looking down at the grey toes of his socks for a second before rocking back on his heels and saying to Derek, “Wanna hang out? Watch a movie? I was probably going to watch a couple episodes of MythBusters or something…”

And that’s how Stiles ends up spending the evening watching MythBusters with Derek Hale, trying not to attract the Sheriff’s attention by laughing too hard. Stiles laughs with his whole body and Derek ends up holding the laptop because of the time Stiles almost kicks it off his lap. It’s… nice. In the morning, Stiles will have to get up and possibly stand between his best friends and a group of hunters who might, like Gerard, not hesitate to kill them, with the pressures of high school and the pressures of the pack, but for now, he’s a regular eighteen-year-old, without a care in the world beyond which episode to watch next.

The laptop is on the desk when Stiles wakes up and he panics for a second, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands and trying to remember getting up and putting it on his desk. Usually he’ll just set it down on the floor beside his bed if he falls asleep while watching something. The hoodie he’d pulled off and tossed at the foot of his bed is draped neatly over the back of his chair, too, and he’s under the blankets. There’s no sign Derek was here at all.

School drags by incredibly slowly and yet it’s over too soon. He doesn’t mention it to his friends, but he just has a feeling about this afternoon. They know something’s wrong and, when Allison corners him between physics and calc, he knows she’s worried about the same things he is. Well, most of the same things. She doesn’t know that Derek apparently _tucked him in_ last night, but he’s trying to forget about that and ignore how... nice, it seems. Besides, they have bigger problems at hand right now.

“I heard my dad tell them that two of them should talk to you and two should go talk to Peter,” she says in a rushed undertone. “Have you seen anything?”

Stiles shakes his head. “Derek hasn’t texted me, either,” he’s quick to reassure her. “Why Peter and not Derek?”

Allison shoots him a look as if to say the last two years haven’t made him any smarter and the answer should be obvious. That girl should stop hanging out with Lydia for a while. Stiles really doesn’t need the only two women in his life able to make him feel like an uneducated cretin with just a raise of the eyebrows and a specific tilt of the head. No wonder Allison has Scott wrapped around her little finger, though. The woman is a menace.

“Because Peter’s an adult, a complete bastard, and slightly less likely to try and rip their throats out than Derek is,” Allison explains. She finishes just in time for them to hear the bell signalling the end of passing time and the start of the last period of the day.

“Shit! Allison, I’ll text you if I meet them,” Stiles promises while grabbing his bag and darting off in the direction of calc and Mrs. Green’s aged wrath.

“You’re late, Mr. Stilinski.” The woman has a voice like someone punched a frog with emphysema in the throat and looks like someone took a rather corpulent person and sucked all the body out of them and left behind a skeleton covered in a skin that was three sizes too big, or maybe like someone left her in the bathtub too long and her whole skin got as wrinkly as her fingers.

“Er, yeah. I, uh, my locker wouldn’t open,” he hedges. She looks at him over the rims of her tortoise-shell glasses and purses her lips, causing about a thousand new wrinkles to appear across her already-heavily-crevassed face.

“Detention, Mr. Stilinski. Two hours.”


	2. Headstrong, You Don't Want To Fight With Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from "Bring the Ruckus" by Manafest

In a way, his two-hour detention is a blessing in disguise, because all of his homework is done by the time he gets out and climbs into the Jeep to head home. His dad was at work for the evening and wouldn’t be home until much later but there’s a note stuck to the fridge that says “The living room looks like a crime scene.” That’s Dad-speak for “clean the living room,” so Stiles makes himself a quick sandwich and wanders from the kitchen into the aforementioned living room and pauses. Damn. His school papers are spread across the coffee table and there are crumbs in the carpet, the remnants of the study-fest he had two nights ago with Scott. He’d been hoping they would disappear magically but with his luck, that was a vain hope indeed.

The sandwich makes its way with depressing haste into Stiles’s stomach and he gets down to business, pulling up the playlist on his iPod titled “Cleaning” but that should really be titled “Derpy Dancing While Sort-of Cleaning” and plugging the device into the stereo. Since his dad isn’t home, he has no compunctions about playing his music at ridiculous volumes while he cleans, loud enough that he’ll be able to hear it over the vacuum.

Scott texts him a few minutes after he’s started to organize the papers on the coffee table (meaning shove them into neat piles based on what subject they’re for and whether he needs them or not, but with no real organization by topic or date). He ignores his phone until he’s done with that task – rule #1 of Phones With Stiles is ignore it if you’re in the middle of a task, because you’ll get distracted – but immediately bursts out laughing when he reads it.

 **From Asshole:** dude turn ur music down. i can hear it from here.

Stiles rather perversely turns it up just a hair.

 **From Asshole:** ur an ass

His music is so loud that he doesn’t hear the sound of people walking up onto his porch, and he’s so in the zone (rocking out with his vacuum) that he doesn’t notice when one of them looks in the window. He’s too busy dancing and singing along to TobyMac too notice one of them looking in the open window at him and then looking to the side and gesturing to another, who comes over and looks in the window and takes a moment to listen to the lyrics of the song he’s rocking out to before straightening and bursting out in hysterical laughter.

_Hey, Devil, go on, get your junk out of here. I don’t need you, I don’t need you. Hey, Devil, go on, get your junk out of here. I don’t need you, so move along._

He almost always listens to the fun and the loud while he’s cleaning, whether it’s Top 40 hits or some Pandora station that seems to be made for Zumba classes. Sometimes, though, it was just time for a little TobyMac, because Stiles’s mom had bought him DC Talk’s _Jesus Freak_ for his ninth birthday, even though it was almost as old as he was. His mom had taken Stiles and his dad to church every Sunday until she’d been too sick to go, and, even then, she’d forced them to go.

When she’d died, he’d originally been too angry to listen to the music they’d loved, too angry to go back to a church. His mom had believed in God with every bone in her body and God had let her die, let her waste away and let his family just fall apart. He’s not angry anymore, having started to let that anger fade away since the day he’d found that old copy of _Jesus Freak_ in his room and remembered how much fun it was.

Nowadays when he listens to Christian music (he’s branched out a bit from the DC Talk and Audio Adrenaline of his childhood), it feels like those days when he’d dance in the kitchen with his mom while they cooked dinner together. It was something Stiles had never really shared with his dad. His dad would stand in the doorway and laugh and smile with them, but he never joined in. Stiles likes to just zone out and dance and clean like the good old days.

Stiles just about jumps out of his skin when one of the men has the presence of mind to ring the bell. He pauses his music and straightens his shirts before pausing his music and walking to the door. When he looks through the peephole, he doesn’t recognize the face he sees, that of a man with green eyes and brown hair trying very hard to look serious. He thinks he sees a man in a trench coat next to him but can’t be sure because they have probably the shittiest peep-hole known to man.

“Heyyy,” he says when he opens the door, trying really hard to be cool. This would be so much easier if Derek were in the house somewhere. Why couldn’t he pick today to lurk? Although if Derek were in the house, maybe those hunters – these hunters? – would probably find him, so maybe it’s best that it’s just Stiles. The man with the leather jacket is standing there, trying hard to be cool and serious and failing _miserably_ while his friend in the trench coat just stares with slightly squinted eyes and furrowed brows.

In contrast, there’s an even taller man standing sort of behind and off to the side, who has longer hair than any of the others and some pretty wicked sideburns, whose lips are twitching with laughter he seems to be trying to hold in. The fourth man is seated on the steps with his back to the rest of them, his whole body shaking with laughter that none of them seem willing to explain.

The man in the trench coat is staring at Stiles intensely and Stiles is a little freaked out by it. The guy’s got all of Derek’s social skills and none of his brooding sex appeal. Charm. Something. Stiles doesn’t want to think about the phrase “sex appeal” when connected to Derek, especially not when facing down four hunters who look like they could break him in half by looking at him funny.

“Hi.” Stiles’s attention is drawn back to the first man, who is probably a couple inches taller than him.

“Are you guys, er, looking for the Sheriff? Dad’s at work right now, if you are,” Stiles says, shoving a hand into his pocket and leaning against the doorway, trying to visually block the entrance to his home as much as his skinny frame would allow.

“Yeah, but maybe you could answer the questions we have. Sheriff’s kid and all,” the man says. He gestures towards the house and Stiles figures he’s going to have to deal with them sooner or later. It’s better than having to deal with them when his dad’s around, after all. Stiles steps away from the door and gestures for them to come in.

The man with the sideburns somehow manages to raise his eyebrows at the laughing man and the first man nods. Must be brothers, or something. The only person with whom Stiles can communicate using only his eyebrows and significant looks like that is Scott. Apparently they were communicating that Sideburns and Giggles should stay outside on the porch, while Derek #2 and Trench Coat follow Stiles inside, because that’s exactly what happens.

Stiles closes the door behind them when they come in and immediately notices that the man in the trench coat has his tie on backwards. He stifles a snort at that. Not that it makes the man any less intimidating. No, Stiles isn’t stupid. Trench Coat doesn’t carry himself like the scatter-brained and somewhat rumpled insurance salesman he appears to be. He walks with the swagger of a man who knows he is powerful, or, as Stiles like to think of it, he walks with Derek’s “I’m The Alpha” strut.

As for Derek #2, well, Stiles figures he looks like more of the same, as far as hunters go. He’s younger than Chris Argent, and there’s something behind his eyes that seems familiar to Stiles, an anger caused by grief and loss that Stiles recognizes all-too-well from looking in the mirror. In the last couple of years, he’s gotten good at reading people, at picking up the tiny details. He might not have Lydia’s ridiculous brains or the wolves’ super-senses, but he’s figured he can at least turn his ADHD to good use. He’s practiced absorbing information about people these last couple of years, making notes of their behaviour and appearance and filing it away.

“So,” Stiles says, breaking the silence and making a note of the way Derek #2 glances around the entry way, taking note of the doors and windows, every place an enemy could be hidden. “You guys wanna… Sit down?” He starts to gesture towards the living room he’d just been cleaning and then realizes there’s still Windex sitting on the coffee table and a vacuum in the middle of the room, so he takes them into the kitchen instead.

“What can I help you with, gentlemen?” He asks, once they’re all seated around the table, sitting back in his chair and trying to be as cool as possible.

“We’re from the California Department of Fish & Wildlife, here about the animal attacks. We were hoping your father could help fill us in,” Derek #2 says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a badge and flashing it at Stiles, who is faster than Derek #2 must have realized, because the card is in Stiles’s hands before Derek #2 can put it away.

“Oh, my God,” he says, a grin breaking out across his face. “Do you think I’m stupid or something?” He holds the badge out of Derek #2’s reach and grins at it. “Luke Skywalker? REALLY? Do people even fall for that?” He laughs even more to himself and hands the badge back to Derek #2, who glares at him. Trench Coat looks confused, as though this is not going according to plan but he doesn’t really know what’s going on to start with.

Stiles knows how he feels.

“Here,” he says in the same jovial tone. “Why don’t we start again? I’m Stiles.” He holds out a hand to Derek #2, who looks at him suspiciously, but takes his hand anyways.

“Dean,” he says after a moment’s hesitation, “and this is Cas.”

“And you’re here about animal attacks. Well, look, asshole,” Stiles is suddenly out of his seat, both hands splayed out across the table and staring into Derek #2’s – no, Dean’s – face. Cas starts to rise out of his seat, as though he’s going to grab Stiles and push him back but something about Dean’s posture holds him back. Stiles isn’t a threat, not really. “Chris sent you to me because I’m the human one who isn’t more terrifying than any of my other friends combined and maybe he thought I’d talk about my friends, which means he hasn’t learned anything in the last two years. I’ll talk enough to give you some friendly advice.”

Dean raises his eyebrows as if to say “go on”. “It’s not my friends,” Stiles continues. He doesn’t say “it’s not the pack” or “it’s not the wolves,” but “it’s not my friends”. “We want to know what’s happening as much as anyone else because someone’s going to a hell of a lot of trouble to frame us for it, but it’s not us. And just for future reference, don’t trust Peter Hale as far as you can kick him.” He straightens up and gets out of Dean’s face and gestures to Cas. “And don’t let Lydia see you dressed like that, man.”

They don’t stay long after that and Stiles is glad. Giggles and Sideburns are still out on the porch when he shows Dean and Cas out, leaning against the railing and talking about where to go for dinner. “Diner,” Stiles suggests, although Giggles is giving him similar vibes to Peter Hale. God, if those two ever stood in the same room, the world might end.

“Diner?” Sideburns asks. “What diner?”

“Just… Diner. It used to be Manny’s Diner, but ever since Manny sold out it’s just Diner. Try the apple pie. It’s heavenly.”

Dean perks up at the mention of pie and asks Stiles for directions. He gives them willingly, although he’s still looking somewhat askance at Giggles, who is now leaning against the railing and watching with a combination of creepiness and curiosity that makes Stiles want to go take a shower.

When the hunters are _finally_ gone, Stiles heads back inside, running his fingers through his hair to try and calm himself down. He’s been letting it grow out a little in the last year. Thankfully, he was almost done with the living room when his unexpected guests arrived, so it shouldn’t take him long to finish up. He clicks the music back on and gets to work.


	3. Like A Candle Makes A Brighter Place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from "So Far Gone" by Thousand Foot Krutch

**To Derek Hale:** Those hunters came by

 **To Derek Hale:** We talked but idk they’ll probably keep poking around.

 **To Derek Hale:** They’ll probably go for Peter next.

Stiles doesn’t really get how Derek puts up with Peter. He guesses it’s a family thing. Even if his dad were a massive douchebag, he’d probably still want him around. His dad’s his family, just like Scott and Mrs. McCall are his family and, in a way, the pack is his family. And Peter? Well, pack is good, but Peter’s the only remnant of Derek’s family, the only reminder of his family that Derek has left and Stiles understands clinging to those things.

Stiles doesn’t really remember the Hales that well. He remembers that they existed, but if someone told him to describe any of them, he’d be shit out of luck. He can imagine how it is for Derek, though, because Stiles can see the way his dad sometimes looks at him when he does something particularly Mom-like. As much as it hurts to be reminded, it’s infinitely worse to have nothing.

He’s still thinking about this when his phone starts singing the Star Wars theme at him. Time to get up and put pants on… He grabs the first pair of jeans he can find and forgets that they’re the same ones he was wearing earlier when the hunters came by. By the time he finds his sneakers, he’s starting to run late and he doesn’t bother to look at his phone as he drives over to Derek’s apartment. He’s the last one there, judging by the look of things.

Derek’s at the door to the building, paying for a stack of pizzas that he sends the delivery girl upstairs to bring into the apartment when he sees Stiles approaching.

“I thought we’d moved past this point in our friendship,” Stiles manages to squeak out in as much of an offhand manner as he can when Derek grabs him by his hoodie and slams him up against a wall, smelling at his clothes and skin with deeply furrowed brows.

“Who the hell were you with?”

“It’s good to see you, too, Derek. I’m doing great, thanks for asking. Did you get new cologne?” Stiles isn’t even that annoyed about being slammed into the wall. He’s just trying to make Derek uncomfortable, so he experimentally sniffs the air near Derek’s neck. “You smell great.”

Derek is flustered but doesn’t let him go. “More than can be said for you,” he grinds out. Stiles doesn’t know how he smells to the werewolf, but he does know that he smells like shower products and Old Spice to HIM, so he glares.

“Thanks, man, really. To think I showered this morning and everything.” His voice is dry and sarcastic. “I told you, those hunters came by earlier. I probably smell like them.”

“Get inside.” Derek steps back and lets go of Stiles’s shirt. The delivery girl is walking back out of the apartment when Stiles straightens his clothes and walks up the stairs. She looks at him a little wistfully and then ducks her head when walking past Derek, who shoves some money for a tip at her before walking inside the apartment after Stiles.

When he gets inside, the pack have already dived on the pizza and are now seated around the living room, eating and cracking jokes at Isaac’s expense. Isaac is blushing and looking into his pizza without saying a word, but he’s smiling and the rest of the pack isn’t being mean about it, so Derek doesn’t say a word when he grabs a slice of pizza and leans on the counter to look at them.

Stiles watches Derek for a second before walking over and standing in silence beside him. “Did you want to talk about this with everyone or do you want to wait until it’s just us?” He asks quietly, even though he knows all the wolves can hear him.

“Now’s good,” Derek replies. “Hey!” He says, just loudly enough to be heard over the noise coming from various bodies scattered around the living room. They all turn to face him. “Stiles met the new hunters in town.”

Seven pairs of eyes swivel towards Stiles, who runs a hand through his hair and sets down his pizza. “Well, they uh, they came by. And they said they were from the Department of Fish & Wildlife and they were SO bullshitting because the one guy had signed his badge as Luke Skywalker, so, yeah.” There’s a ripple of laughter at that and Stiles smiles a little to himself, relaxing.

He’s never liked being the centre of attention, never liked being at the heart of things. “What were they like?” Derek asks.

“The two who came inside were called Dean and… Cas. Cas didn’t talk, just stood around looking intimidating, which is weird because it was something about the way he holds himself or something, not like he was really intimidating. He looked more like a banker, really. His tie was on backwards and his suit was totally wrinkly, though, so probably not really a banker.” Lydia looks like she might faint at that. Typical. She might have stopped pretending to be dumb, but her love of fashion and her insistence on them all being well-dressed is genuine.

For Isaac’s seventeenth birthday, she’d bought him a suit (and Stiles really doesn’t want to know how she got his measurements), custom tailored just for him and, although she’d played it off like she was just unable to stomach the thought of him showing up at a formal event looking like himself, yet, when he’d shown up at that year’s Winter Formal, she’d watched him with a little smile, softer than most expressions he ever saw on Lydia’s face. She obviously had a maternal streak a mile wide and Stiles was smart enough to know that if he ever mentioned it, she’d gut him.

“Dean was more of the typical hunter. Leather jacket, flannel shirt, black tee, the works. He seems like he’s the most in charge of them all. He asked all the questions, but he also didn’t seem like he expected me to… know what they were there for. He was surprised when I did. Thanks, Allison.” He smiles at her and shoots her a thumbs-up. She grins and returns the gesture, removing her hand from Scott’s hair for the time it takes to do so. “As for the other two, well… I don’t know much about them. The one was tall, with bitchin’ sideburns. He sort of held himself apart, but not like the last one. The last one… I dunno, he felt kind of like Peter, if that makes sense. Major creep vibes there.”

Peter is suspiciously (well, not too suspiciously) absent from this meeting, but Stiles suspects Derek doesn’t want him there, given the friction between him and the rest of the pack. It’s not like he needs to be around for the information session half of the meeting and the likelihood of him enjoying video games and what Stiles privately thinks of as the Puppy Pile is just about nil.

Stiles shrugs when they all keep looking at him as though waiting for more information. “I don’t know, guys, I don’t have your super senses.”

Derek puts his hands on Stiles’s shoulders and propels him forward. “Erica,” he says in his Alpha voice. “Come up and tell me what you smell on Stiles.”

Erica swings her legs out from where they’d been slung over Boyd’s lap and walks over to where Stiles is. Lydia has long since gotten over rolling her eyes when Erica does that walk, hips swinging and oozing young sexuality, because, for the most part, Erica has gotten over it. Whatever’s going on with her and Boyd must have mellowed her out some, because she’s toned down the makeup, toned down the whole sex bomb thing. It’s probably for the best.

She leans in towards Stiles and smells at his flannel a bit. He’s used to this sort of behaviour, so he just shoves his hands in his pockets when she gets all up in his personal space. “Leather,” is her first response. “I think that’s motor oil. God, what were you doing, cuddling a mechanic?”

Derek rolls his eyes and indicates she should sit down. “Jackson, your turn,” he said. Jackson is somehow able to convey condescension for the task and joy at being selected. Stiles doesn’t point out that Derek probably picked him second because he knew Erica wouldn’t take all the easy smells, even though Stiles really wants to. He’s an adult now and should probably act like it. Something like werewolves and freaky murders tends to level the playing field and Stiles doesn’t want to deal with pissed-off wolfy douchebag because he couldn’t hold in one smarmy comment.

Jackson’s verdict is obvious (“Guns… and that’s definitely motor oil,”) and Stiles could probably have told you those smells were there. Before he walks away from Stiles, Jackson turns and his brows furrow for a moment in consternation. “Ash, but not like from a campfire.”

Derek seems to consider this information. Stiles is aware that Derek knows pretty much every scent on him, but he seems pleased that Jackson picked it out. Isaac is up next, and all he comes up with is “It’s like he was around bleach a few hours ago, but not quite right. There’s blood there, too, but more of…” He gestures vaguely. “Not like fresh blood, just… blood.”

Boyd’s responses are always much simpler than anyone else’s during this sort of exercise and Stiles expects today to be no different. He watches with interest when Boyd ambles over, sniffs at Stiles once or twice, and then states, casual-as-you-please, “Fireworks,” before ambling back over to the couch and flopping down so Erica can toss her legs across his lap once more.

“What are we going to do about them?” Scott asks, breaking the somewhat tense silence that descends over the pack. Stiles notices Scott hasn’t been called up to smell him, but he doesn’t say anything about it.

He wants to argue when Derek says “Avoid them,” but he doesn’t. He’s had a lot of practice holding things in lately, although, to be fair, he’s always had a lot of practice holding things in. Maybe that’s why he has no filter about the stupid shit he says sometimes, because he’s too busy holding in all the important things. Opinions, feelings, you name it.

It’s only later, when the rest of the pack is absorbed with Super Smash Bros. that Stiles pulls Derek aside and says quietly, although he knows the pack could hear if they wanted, “Are you sure avoiding them is the best policy?”

“Stiles, they’re hunters.” He has to bite his tongue to keep from snapping. People really, really shouldn’t use that tone of voice with him. He hates it.

“Maybe they know what they’re doing. More than us, anyways. I get the sense they’re not just werewolf hunters. The Argents stay in one spot. They have a house and a home. The way these guys looked around my house… I get the sense the only time they see the inside of a house is when they’re hunting.” He shrugs a little. “They didn’t look at the pictures on the walls like normal people do, barely glanced at the fact that the living room was half-cleaned. They checked the exits and looked for weapons, man.”

Derek seems to consider this for a moment before he opens his mouth to respond. “And on your gut instinct that it’s a good idea, you want me to possibly endanger the lives of my f- the pack?” He doesn’t need to say it. Stiles can hear ‘my family’ as clearly as if Derek had said the words. All the annoyance Stiles was prepared to feel melts away at that. Of course Derek wants to avoid hunters.

He lets it go for now, opting to watch Scott throw a controller at Boyd, who snatches it out of the air just before it hits Erica in the head. There’s laughter and music (someone must have decided it was Pandora time) and Stiles wants to reach out and touch Derek’s arm, just to make sure Derek knows that Stiles sees it, too. Family. He goes so far as to extend his fingers a little bit before dropping them and walking over to steal the controller away from Jackson and flop down between him and Lydia.

The first guitar notes hit him like a brick to the face. The others are laughing at how Erica yanks Boyd to his feet to do some sort of calypso-esque thing with him. If he were thinking clearly, he’d give her props for doing that on a carpet with heels on, but he isn’t, he just feels like his chest is closing in. He knows it’s Erica and Boyd there, and no two people could look more different from his mom and dad, but he remembers the video they played at his mom’s funeral of his mom grabbing his dad and making him dance with her at their wedding to this song.

“Jump In The Line” should never make someone feel like this, this combination of rage and grief and absolute horror. He knows the instant the wolves all pause to stare at him and he stands up to leave, shaking his head at Scott, who looks like he’s about to follow him.

Outside he can’t hear the music. He doesn’t know how long he sits on the front steps to Derek’s apartment building before he hears footsteps behind him and says, “I’m fine Scott, really.”

“Actually, it’s Isaac.”

Isaac sits down beside him on the steps and doesn’t say anything for a while. “We used to paint together. My dad and I, that is. We’d do these amazing murals on the basement walls. Scenes from books I liked at the time, or things I thought were cool.” He’s not looking at Stiles, but instead off into space. “I know it’s not the same, but… Sometimes I think of my dad as two different people. There’s my dad and there’s a man who had his face but wasn’t my dad. It helped.” He puts a hand on Stiles’s shoulder.

“My mom and dad danced to that song at their wedding. They showed the video at her funeral, you know? I remember seeing my mom’s face, how she laughed at my dad, and… God, I thought I’d be ok with it, but I’m not.” He doesn’t really know why he’s telling Isaac this, but he is and it just works. “Something about Erica and Boyd…”

“I get it.”

They can hear different music from inside, someone shrieking with laughter (probably Allison). “We should go back inside.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Stiles doesn’t bring up the subject of the hunters again until everyone has left except for himself, Scott and Allison. They’re in the kitchen while Scott and Allison are collecting the last of the plates from adjoining living room.

“Derek, if you’d just-”

“Stiles, I told you, I don’t want to have anything to do with them!” Derek flexes his fingers as though he can feel his claws just below the surface, itching to come out.

“Actually,” Allison interjects softly from the entrance to the kitchen area. She’s still leery about offering opinions on something other than what movie to watch on Pack Movie Night. The fact that she is offering her thoughts now says to Stiles that she feels pretty strongly about the subject at hand and that maybe Derek should take note.

“I think Stiles is right. The Winchesters aren’t just hunters, you know… They’re the best hunters. I did some research on my own and, well,” she hesitates for a moment, pushing a lock of dark hair behind her ear, even though it was already there to start with, “I think that if you work with them, they’ll leave you alone and… If they see you as fellow hunters rather than as monsters… That’s good, right?” She holds up a hand when Derek bristles at her words and opens his mouth to speak.

“She’s not saying you are a monster, Derek,” Stiles jumps into assure him. “Just that a hunter might see you and one if that hunter didn’t know you.” He rather tentatively lays a hand on Derek’s bicep as he’s talking and is rewarded by Derek’s hands relaxing, the red tint leaving his eyes.

“And based on your hunch that it would help, you’d have me endanger the safety of my pack? Scott’s safety? Isaac’s? All of yours?” He asks.

“Derek, I don’t want you to endanger anyone! I’m trying my hardest to protect them!” They’re all a little startled by Allison’s outburst. After Gerard’s death, she and her dad left town for a while, visiting an old friend of Chris’s, and Allison had been strangely chill when she’d returned. Subdued, almost, but like she was holding it all inside, still, even anger she was justified in feeling.

Stiles gets it. He knows she doesn’t want them to be reminded of that the times she tried to kill them. She can barely look Erica and Boyd in the eyes as it is. He wishes Derek understood how hard this whole situation is for her, too, but he apparently doesn’t, since he snaps back with, “Because your family has such a great track record of protecting us in the past!”

Allison goes dead white and steps back like she’s been struck. She turns towards Scott, who puts an arm around her shoulders, his golden eyes staring accusatorily at Derek. Stiles wonders briefly if one day he won’t have to be standing between two werewolves about to kill each other, if one day his friends will work things out between them. Apparently that day isn’t today, because he steps around Derek without removing his hand from the Alpha’s bicep.

“Scott, take her home. I need to talk to Derek. Alone.” He may not be surprised by Derek’s words, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t pissed as all hell about what has just been said. Scott seems like he’s torn between getting Allison away from Derek, at whom she’s still staring like he just slapped her, her lips slightly parted and eyes wide, glistening with unshed tears, and staying to protect Stiles from Derek’s lupine wrath.

After a conversation that consists entirely of eyebrows and one pointed look towards the door, Scott is convinced to take Allison out of the apartment with a worried glance back at his best friend, who is still standing in the kitchen with his hand on Derek’s arm. The door shuts with a click, but neither the wolf nor the boy moves until they hear Allison’s car start and drive off.

“You should apologize to her,” Stiles says quietly, turning to grab a paper towel and some all-purpose cleaner and wipe down the counters. Derek doesn’t respond, meaning he knows that Stiles is right but doesn’t want to admit it. “She’s trying to help as best she can.”

“She should keep her nose out of what doesn’t concern her.”

“Either she’s pack or she’s not, but you can’t only include her when things are good. If Erica and Boyd can stand to have her around, then you should deal with it, too,” Stiles retorts.

Derek snorts and grabs the paper towel Stiles left crumpled up on the counter, tossing it into the trash. “I was going to get that,” Stiles informs him. “But I’m not done talking to you. Maybe you don’t trust the Argents, fine, but you should trust Allison’s instincts on this one. She’s got a good point and maybe, oh, I don’t know, knows what she’s talking about, given that she was raised by hunters and has spent the last eighteen months learning everything she can about the hunting community,” he points out.

“Fine, I’ll talk to them!”

“And furthermore,” Stiles continues on, as if he hasn’t even heard Derek’s words. “Wait, really?” He asks. “You will?”

Derek’s lips twitch for just a second, as though he wants to laugh at the incredulous expression Stiles’s face, but he gets control of himself and goes back to looking forbidding at him. “Fine. But I’ll only do it at your house, since I don’t want to just let them walk into my house, especially since there’s always extra pack around here.”

“Why my house?”

“You want me to tell them where any of the wolves live?”

“Good point.”

“Not to mention they’ve already been to your house.”

Stiles nods appreciatively. “Another good point. When do you want to do this?”

“When won’t your dad be home?”

“Uh, he’s working mostly weird early morning shifts all week since one of the deputies managed to come down with the flu, so I think he’ll be around most afternoons until…” He ticks the days off on his fingers, counting them out. “Friday?”

“Friday, then, after school. I’ll be there.”

“Alright then.” Stiles grabs his flannel off the back of one of the kitchen chairs and shrugs into it. “I’ll set it up.”

He’s about to walk out the door and out to his Jeep when Derek’s hand wraps around his wrist. The older man doesn’t shove him into anything, for which Stiles is momentarily grateful. “Wait, Stiles.”

“What?” They’re framed in the doorway to Derek’s apartment. There are shadows playing across Derek’s face, accenting the dark slashes of his eyebrows on his face. He seems uncertain, somehow, as if he’s not sure how Stiles will react to what he’s about to say or if he even wants to say it at all.

“Cutthroat Monopoly,” he says, which takes Stiles by surprise, enough so that he squeezes his eyes shut to make sure he heard right.

“Monopoly?”

“Laura was vicious. She’d cheat and no one would be able to catch her. Who…” He pauses, a sound escaping from his throat that might have been a laugh at one point, but sounds more like a strangled duck now. “Who cheats at Monopoly?”

Comprehension hits Stiles like a lacrosse ball to the gut. His whole face falls from the amused expression covering it. He knows what Derek’s trying to do and… Well, it actually does make him feel better about freaking out earlier. “I’m sorry, Derek,” is all he can manage to say, voice barely above a whisper.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Neither was my mom dying. I’m still sorry.” Derek nods once and lets go of Stiles’s wrist. He straightens up, as though he’s about to turn away and disappear into the depths of his apartment, but Stiles reaches out and puts his arms around Derek’s waist for one brief second before throwing himself backwards.

“Well, I hope that was sufficiently awkward for both of us!” He quips, straightening his flannel nervously, as though he expects Derek to yell at him. “I’ll just be going, then…” He’s unusually fidgety now and makes a quick getaway before Derek can do anything but turn around and walk back into his apartment, closing the door behind him with a resolute click and ignoring the smile of kindly Mrs. Witkowski in Apartment C.


	4. We're on a Mission, Nothing Can Stand in our Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, wow, I didn't expect so many people to read this! I was going to not post this until I have the next chapter done, but I'm so overwhelmed that you can have this now. *swoon*  
> ~wow~  
> I'm still overwhelmed that so many of you have clicked on this????  
> Title is from "Welcome To The Show" by Britt Nicole.

“Will you go away and leave me alone to do my damn homework?” Derek is lurking. Looming. Whatever you want to call it, the Alpha is doing it, and it’s pissing Stiles off.

“No. They might be watching the house.” Derek sits on the couch next to where Stiles is sitting with his schoolwork spread out over the coffee table. With a heavy sigh, he sets his pen down and turns to look at Derek.

“They won’t be here for _ages_ , dude, just let me work,” he begs, only slightly ashamed of the whiny tone to his voice. “Mrs. Green gave me a two-hour detetion last time I didn’t have my homework done!”

“It’s just calc, Stiles. It’s not _that_ bad.” Derek reaches out and plucks the book from underneath Stiles’s arm, examining the problems there. “Punkin Chunkin?” He asks, incredulous.

“It’s a dumb pumpkin throwing thing in Delaware. The book tries to give us real life examples for things so we really know what we’re doing. We did that one in class today. Here.” He points to a problem about a boat and grabs his notebook in an attempt to get some stuff done while Derek is distracted reading the description for the Punkin Chunkin competition.

He’s surprised that he actually finishes the assignment and is even more surprised when Derek looks over his work and nods, pronouncing it good. One of his hands is on the book, about to slam it shut so that he can do the traditional victory dance of the Wild Stilinski when the doorbell rings.

They both freeze and Stiles, instead of slamming his book shut, closes it gently and gets to his feet. “Must be time,” he murmurs, straightening his shirts and going to the door. Although he doesn’t hear it, he knows that Derek has gotten up and followed him.

Stiles doesn’t bother looking through the peep-hole to see who’s out there. He knows already, anyways. It’s just Dean and Sideburns this time.

“Come in,” Stiles says, keeping his back to Derek and away from the hunters. They enter and follow Stiles into the kitchen, where they all sit in silence so tense that Stiles has to restrain himself from screaming just to break it.

“We want to know what we can do to make this as smooth as possible,” he says instead.

“Well, we need to clear this up. How do we know it’s not you?” Dean asks. Derek bristles a little and Stiles hopes he doesn’t live to regret this. “You could be lying.”

“I don’t lie,” Derek grinds out. “It’s useless to lie to werewolves, so werewolves learn not to lie.”

“Werewolves?” Dean and Sideburns share a significant look between them. Dean rubs his chest as though he has heartburn and Sideburns shakes his head. They both frown.

“Sorry if we seem sceptical. We’ve run into werewolves before and these attacks don’t seem like werewolf attacks, but I’ve never known a werewolf to not have… bloodlust problems at the full moon?” Sideburns looks a little embarrassed by the line of conversation. He’s trying to make himself look less threatening, possibly because he’s aware that the truce Derek’s offering is tenuous at best.

“What, do you need me to prove it?” Derek asks drily.

Sideburns looks like he’s about to say that’s not necessary when Dean says, “You can shift right now?”

Derek doesn’t shift completely into the Alpha form, but he lets his face shift and his claws come out. Sideburns reaches into his pocket and Derek immediately moves in front of Stiles to protect him if Sideburns pulls out a gun. It’s a phone, though, and Derek shifts back.

“Do you mind if I make a quick call? I’ve never seen anything like that before and want to ask someone I know if he has.” Derek and Stiles both shrug.

Sideburns waits a little while before someone picks up. Stiles can’t hear what’s going on, but Derek can and Stiles plans on bugging him for information on what happens on the other end of the line.

“Oh, hey Kevin. Yeah, it’s Sam.” Ah, Sam. Not Sideburns, then. “You’re at Bobby’s? Huh. Cool. Your mom doing alright? I’m glad to hear it. No, we’re still in California. Could you maybe take a break from absorbing – Jesus, is that Garth? Thank God you answered. – Bobby’s vast piles of knowledge and his tortilla chips and do a little research for me?” There’s a pause.

“Yeah, we’ve run into something Dean and I haven’t seen before. Calls himself a werewolf, but he’s not like any of the werewolves we’ve ever seen. Well, he can shift at will, for one. I don’t know,” he answered.

“We’re not.” Derek says to Sam, who nods.

“He says they’re not. Thanks.” He listens for a moment to something on the phone. “Alright, see you then. Say hi to everyone for us. Bye, kid.” He hangs up and looks at them, as Dean starts to ask questions again.

“What about… werewolves,” he makes a face after saying ‘werewolves,’ as though he’s not sure it’s the right thing to say, “that aren’t part of your pack?”

“I’d know if there was another wolf in my territory.”

“How?”

“I’m the Alpha. I’d _know_.”

Stiles wants to smack him but he doesn’t, knowing it won’t hurt and Derek will only get annoyed with him. “What he means is that it’d be impossible for another wolf to come in through his territory without him noticing.”

“So if it’s not another wolf and it’s not one of you, then what is it?”

The million-dollar question. Stiles finds that his research from the last eighteen months has been paying off because he finds himself able to contribute to the conversation wherein each of them throws ideas onto the table (with Stiles helpfully taking notes) and the others tell why those ideas can’t be right.

“Griffon?”

“The mauling is consistent with parts of griffon lore.” Sam is leaning back in his chair and flipping through what looks like some sort of journal.

“It can’t be a griffin.” Derek cuts Sam off before the freakishly tall man can continue. Sam and Dean look up at him, but it’s Stiles who continues talking, since he knows that Derek’s skills at Explaining Things are rusty, at best.

He runs his hand through his hair and shifts a little bit in his seat. “Well, griffins are, by all accounts, pretty big, the size of a lion, you know? And they can fly. Not to mention they’re monogamous and are often found in mated pairs, but it could be a grief-stricken griffon whose mate has died,” he pauses for a second to take a breath before continuing. “But, that’s still a pretty big and noticeable creature to have flying around, mauling innocent civilians, with no one noticing. You know?”

“He’s right. Someone would have heard something about a giant lion-eagle.”

They eventually narrow their list down to kobolds, revenants, davea, skinwalkers, dragons (dragons, man!), and harpies, before Stiles has to kick them all out because his dad will be home soon. The hunters leave before Derek does and Stiles assumes that Derek will walk out the back door and just go lurk in Stiles’s bedroom until Stiles can go up there himself.

Derek isn’t lurking in Stiles’s room when he goes up after dinner and Stiles isn’t sure whether he’s grateful or a little disappointed. He sits with his laptop on his bed watching more MythBusters on Netflix until he finally falls asleep, but not before texting Derek one more time.

 **To Derek Hale:** You left before we could talk about what happened. :(


	5. Can't Leave You My Body, But I'll Leave You A Tune

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from "Here's To You" by Brooke Fraser.

The mark of a _true_ best friend, in Stiles’s mind, is that no matter how little they see each other, when they are together it’s like no time has passed at all. He sometimes resents how little Scott seems to be around nowadays, but he gets it. He doesn’t even resent how much time Scott spends with Isaac – not much, anyways – because he knows that he and Scott have a bond that just can’t be replicated and he suspects that Isaac views Scott as a sort of role-model.

It makes sense. Scott is approachable in a way that Derek isn’t and never really has been. Derek’s who you go to if you’re being hunted by harpies. Scott’s who you go to if you need advice on where to apply for college or how to ask a girl out. He’s grown up a lot in the last couple of years. His grades are back up to normal and he’s matured and sometimes Stiles worries that his best friend has matured just a little too much.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and Stiles is willing to sacrifice one of his beloved Cheetos to the cause. Scott straightens up and grabs it between his teeth before it can hit him in the forehead.

“Dude! That was awesome! Can you do that again?”

Scott rolls his eyes, but there’s a grin on his face again. Stiles sacrifices another Cheeto, throwing it at his best friend, who catches it again. “That,” Stiles declares, “is a truly useful skill. Screw the rest of it, that’s the best werewolf superpower I’ve seen all day.”

“Shut up,” Scott shoves Stiles’s shoulder lightly and grabs the controller from the coffee table, but doesn’t hit any buttons. “I’m kind of worried about Allison.”

Stiles holds in a groan and manages not to roll his eyes, because he knows that Scott wouldn’t just bring it up for no good reason – they’ve fought about it too many times for Scott to forget anymore, especially after the pool incident. Besides, what are best friends for? “What’s up, dude?”

“She’s holding a lot in, ever since she came back from that trip with her dad. It reminds me a bit of how you were… You know, that summer.” He gestures to his stomach and Stiles would laugh at how much it looks like Scott’s trying to talk about Stiles being pregnant or something if he didn’t know how much worse the truth actually was.

He runs his hand over his stomach, feeling the rows of straight scars under his t-shirt. “I know,” he answers. “Is she?”

“No.” Scott is sitting on the edge of the couch, the controller dangling between his knees from limp hands. “I can’t figure out how she’s coping and if I ask her about it, she just shuts me down. I’m trying to understand, but I don’t know how to support her if I don’t know what’s going on.”

Stiles has never had a girlfriend (or a boyfriend, for that matter). He’s kissed a few girls at parties, but he knows, deep down, that he’ll have to wait for someone really fantastic before actually committing to a relationship. As much as he gripes about his friends, he wants the kind of thing his parents had, that he thinks Scott and Allison have, He also knows that in reality it would take someone really special to accept the whole “werewolves and various other supernatural creatures are real and include my best friends in their ranks” thing.

But the fact remains that Stiles has very little romantic experience and he doesn’t really know what to tell Scott. “I dunno, man,” he says after a while. “Just be there for her when she needs you to be and respect her if she wants space. She’ll talk to you when she’s ready, you know?”

“Yeah…” Scott trails off, staring into space in the general direction of his hands. He shakes his head free of those thoughts and, wow, his hair is getting shaggy these days. How does he even SEE with his hair flopping into his eyes like that? Stiles is glad he never had a phase of super long hair. He likes to say he lived vicariously through Scott for most of his bad decisions.

Scott’s phone beeps and it’s Stiles who grabs it. Oddly enough, his stomach sinks a little more when he sees that it’s not Allison but Isaac texting Scott. “Isaac,” he says, handing it over. Scott opens it and frowns, looking unsure.

“He wants to hang out tonight.”

Stiles resigns himself to losing Scott’s company for the evening, when a thought strikes him and it’s so shocking that he almost leans back in his chair. He’s been so used to his group being just him and Scott that he hasn’t adjusted to it being other people and has been a little resentful of losing his best friend rather than just inviting other people to join them sometimes.

He’s about to grudgingly tell Scott to go hang out with Isaac instead of hanging out with Stiles when he remembers Isaac coming and sitting with him on the steps at Derek’s apartment. _We used to paint together. My dad and I._ He opens his mouth to say, “Go hang out with Isaac. He’s probably really lonely, living with Derek and Peter,” but what comes out instead is “Why don’t you invite him to come over?”

Scott looks up from his phone. “Really? I was gonna tell him we’d hang out tomorrow, but… I think he’d like that a lot. I don’t think he thinks you like him very much.” He looks a little unsure, still, but Stiles nods.

“Yeah, man, totally.” He sets his controller down on the coffee table and leans back against the cushions. “We’ve got plenty of snacks, so it’d probably help, honestly. Someone’s gotta keep him fed.”

Scott texts Isaac back and they just hang out, cracking jokes, until Isaac shows up. Stiles feels even worse about his attitude towards Isaac in the past when the young man in question arrives and looks so adorably unsure about coming in that Stiles’s heart melts and he feels all of his latent maternal instincts kick in.

It turns out to be a lot more fun than Stiles ever expected hanging out with Scott and Isaac to be. He doesn't know Isaac that well, if he's honest, doesn't know any of the puppies that well. They’re all sitting around on the couch, laughing and yelling at the TV when the Sheriff gets home. Isaac has grown a lot in the last two years and when the Sheriff sticks his head in the door, Isaac doesn’t tense up and lean towards Scott like he once would have. He just smiles and waves while the other boys greet Stiles's dad.

They talk and it comes out that Isaac has never seen Stiles’s dad’s favorite movie, _Mr. Smith Goes To Washington_ , and with a resolute, “Son, we’re going to fix this gaping hole in your life,” the Sheriff turns off the Xbox, fires up the DVD player, and the four of them spend the rest of the evening on the couch watching James Stewart stalwartly sticking to good old American values. The three boys fall asleep on the couch and the floor and the Sheriff lets them stay there.

Somehow, this translates into Isaac, and sometimes Scott, coming over for movies every so often, watching all the old classic. Isaac  _loves_  them, which surprises Stiles and thrills the Sheriff. He can't get Stiles to sit with him and watch the movies they watched together as kids very often, but Isaac is more than happy to latch onto the Sheriff as a sort of father-figure. The interaction is obviously good for both of them and, for once, Stiles doesn't feel like he's being replaced. He's more than happy to sit in the living room with his dad and Isaac, eating pizza and watching movies, especially if that makes his dad happy, which it does.


	6. I Won't Keep Searching For Answers That Aren't Here To Find

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from "Where I Belong" by Building 429.

**From Derek Hale:** I’m at your house.

 **From Derek Hale:** Stiles

 **From Derek Hale:** Where the hell are you

 **From Asshole:** dude Derek just came 2 my house bc ur not home

 **From Asshole:** where r u

 **From Asshole:** srsly dude

Stiles is, at the moment, ignoring his phone and running through the woods of the Beacon Hills Preserve. He can hear the beep of text messages coming in, but he’s ignoring it except as an annoying beep that causes his music to pause for just a second. Annoying.

_Well your mama kept you but your daddy left you and I should’ve done you just the same, but I came to love you. Am I born to bleed? Any old time, you keep me waiting, waiting, waiting…_

Stiles likes to run. He never thought he would before everything with Scott and werewolves, but he took to werewolves like Donna Noble took to being in the TARDIS and, well, seriously, there’s an awful lot of running involved. He doesn’t have supernatural strength or supernatural cardio abilities, so he’s got to keep fit under his own steam.

It takes him a second to realize that “Lonely Boy” is his ringtone, not a song playing on his phone, so he slows to a stop and leans against a tree to take a long sip from his water bottle before hitting the answer button on his phone.

“Stiles, where the hell are you?”

“Wow, it’s great to hear from you, Derek! You know, it’s been such a long time. The days have really dragged by in your absence. I _was_ sitting in my room, pining my life away and waiting for the erstwhile Mr. Hale to grace me with his presence,” he puts on a posh-sounding Southern accent for a moment before switching back to his ordinary voice. “Oh wait, no I wasn’t.”

“I’m at your house. We need to talk.”

“Well, that’s your tough luck.” If he wasn’t still annoyed at Derek for ditching the other day and then not texting him back, Stiles would probably laugh at the annoyed noises coming from the other side of the line.

“Stiles, come home _now_.”

He pretends to consider it for a second, going so far as to let a little “hmmm…” out, but then says, faux-chipper, “No, sorry, I think I’ll finish up what I’m doing here. Bye!” He’s laughing when he hears Derek growl, “STILES!” as Stiles hangs up.

He’s not entirely surprised when he hears people and sees a car out by the old Hale house. Usually the people who sneak around are Stiles’s classmates, people who know to clear out when Stiles or one of the Pack shows up. Derek, if he shows up, can probably smell that Stiles sometimes comes out here to think, makes a loop around the house on his runs, just generally keeps an eye on the place and shoos the kids he sees around it.

It’s becoming a local tradition among kids who think they’re cool, to come and try and spend a night in the old Hale house, especially around Halloween. Derek knows and ignores it, saying he wants to leave the past in the past, but he still laughs when the Puppies and Jackson join forces to scare the wits out of particularly obnoxious groups of students.

Stiles pauses at the edge of the tree line when he sees that the car parked by Hale House is not one he recognizes from school, but the old Impala that those hunters drove. He turns his music off, puts his headphones in his pockets, and walks up towards the house, giving the car a wide berth, although there doesn’t appear to be anyone in it.

The hunters are just leaving the house when Stiles reaches the porch steps, and they freeze when they see him there. “Stiles, isn’t it?” Derek #2 -  no, Dean – asks, walking forward.

“You know, I really don’t think it’s a great idea for you guys to be here. Not that I’m not totally sure that you guys are working in everyone’s best interests, it’s just that the big guy might not like you to be poking around his old home…” He trails off as a fifth figure walks out, wearing a crisp black button down and slacks.

“No need to get all… fired up on my nephew’s behalf, Stiles,” Peter assures him smarmily – but when isn’t he smarmy, really? “I invited them to meet me here rather than at Derek’s.” He walks down the stairs and runs his hand down the side of Stiles’s face before letting it rest against his neck for a second. “You know how Derek can be.”

Stiles can feel chills running down his spine and is glad he’ll have to shower when he gets home anyways. Derek’s token creepy uncle disappears into the woods and Stiles is proud that he manages not to shudder, even when Peter is gone. He doesn’t need to tell the hunters that they all hate having Peter around, except Derek, and the jury’s out on that one.

“Does Derek know you were meeting with his uncle?” He asks. They look a bit uncomfortable.

“Does it matter?”

Stiles almost laughs at Sam’s question. “Yes, it matters. Pro-tip: don’t talk to any of us without talking to me or Derek first.”

Giggles is watching Stiles with something like mistrust and dislike on his face. He’s trying to angle his body between Stiles and Sam without Sam noticing, and Stiles thinks that’s just hilarious. He’s just under six feet of skin, bones and lean muscle, whose fighting techniques are all about avoiding serious injury until one of his friends can rescue him, after all. He’s certainly not going to be a threat to an oversized man-moose, not with three of the man-moose’s friends around.

Stiles doesn’t miss much, these days. He sees the second that Sam notices what his companion is doing, sees the tiny furrow of Sam’s brows and the way his fingers reach out for just a moment to brush against Giggles’. Giggles relaxes. Stiles notices that something seems to be bothering Cas, too, the way he’s looking at Stiles and leaning towards Dean, as if he’s ready to throw himself in front of his companion. Weird.

He files those reactions away for examining later, because he has other things to worry about right now, and Stiles is nothing if not good at prioritizing things. “Have you found anything?”

Dean looks out towards where Peter disappeared into the woods. He gestures to the car. “We’ll give you a lift back to town, if you want.”

“Sure.” He can just jog back to his house from wherever they drop him off, if it’s not at his house.

When they’re all in the car, Stiles is squeezed into the back seat between Sam and Giggles. Dean’s driving and Stiles gets the impression that that’s the usual way of things for them. None of them discuss what happened until they’re a little ways away from Hale House.

“So…” Stiles begins, trying to break the awkward silence that is descending. “You met Uncle Peter.”

“That man is… Unsettling.” This, from Cas, makes Dean laugh a little.

“C’mon, Cas, you should be used to the previously-dead wandering around. Hell, you hang out with us,” he jokes to his friend, or, well, Cas is reaching out and covering Dean’s hand with his, so maybe “friend” isn’t the right word, but Stiles isn’t sure what the right word is, so he just mentally shrugs it off and keeps on going with his life.

“Castiel is right. That man was creepy.”

Sam turns to face Giggles, his lips slightly parted as he bends forward so he can peer around Stiles, but he doesn’t say anything, merely raises his eyebrows in response to the other man’s words.

 “So we haven’t learned much recently, although we found out today that one of the victims survived, so we’ll drive up to the hospital tomorrow and see him, see what he remembers.”

“Nothing, really,” Stiles answers, leaning back against his seat and feeling just a little smug. Some great hunters they are. “I read the police report. He said he was walking through the woods outside of town, saw a person in the distance, and then, bam, doesn’t remember what happened. I think the victims must be connected though.”

“Why?”

“My dad’s the sheriff,” Stiles reminds them testily. “He said that a few days before he was attacked some guy came up to him on the street and said something like, ‘You took her away from me and now you’ll pay’. Typical creepy villain stuff, honestly. Hey, if you wanna let me out here, I can jog back from here.”

Dean obligingly pulls over and Sam gets out so that Stiles doesn’t have to climb over him. “Thanks for the help, kid,” Dean says. “See you around.”

“No problem. Keep us updated.” It’s not just a friendly suggestion and they all know it.

They drive off and Stiles is mentally kicking himself the whole way home because, once again, he forgot to ask what Giggles’ name is.

 **To Allison Argent:** What’s the name of the creepy one?

 **From Allison Argent:** I’ve heard Sam call him Lucifer.

 **To Allison Argent:** How apt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh GOSH you guys. I can't even express how happy all your kind commends and likes and stuff make me! *u* Sorry this has taken so long to get up on here.  
> Also, just so you know, all the songs that I'm naming chapters after are all fantastic, and the lines I'm picking have nice reasoning behind them, so if you ever wanna talk music or why I picked them or anything, just hit me up! :)  
> (Psssst. You can find me on tumblr at wehavebeenreborn, and I'd love to hear from you and talk to you and all that jazz! <3)


	7. 'Cause I'm Messed Up and You're Broken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Start Somewhere" by TobyMac.

Stiles hasn't always considered himself an unshakable person, but being slammed up against a wall by an annoyed Alpha werewolf doesn't even make his heart rate jump anymore. "I'm sure you want to know about what happened and why I was with them, but right now I am going to go take a shower before I tell you anything, so you can just wait." He slips out under Derek's arms and grabs the clothes sitting on his bed before heading across the hall to the bathroom.  
Derek is sitting in Stiles' desk chair when Stiles returns, thumbing through Stiles' copy of Beowulf with interest. "I don't remember doing this in school," he comments mildly.  
"We're not. I'm using it as a way to practice reading Old English where I can check how good my translation is. Deaton gave me some texts but I want to make sure that I can read them, with at least some accuracy, you know? Although, there isn't a ton of consistency between the different dialects of Old English. I just thought it would be good to practice with Beowulf since Beowulf is in the West-Saxon dialect - well, mostly, anyways - and that's what most of the surviving texts are in. I've been looking at other things online, too, but it's nice to have the paper copy that I can make notes on."  
"Right," is Derek's response. "Deaton gave you texts?"  
Derek's ability to just let Stiles talk at him about anything and everything is actually one of Stiles' favourite thing about their friendly neighborhood Alpha, maybe because Derek has the remarkable ability to pick out the useful information from Stiles' word-vomits without making him repeat parts of it. "Yeah. I'm not sure whether they're related to what's been happening or not, but, I mean, Deaton doesn't exactly just give out ancient texts without a reason, so I figure they might be pretty important."  
Derek nods. "If you get a translated copy of them made, I'd like to see them. Lydia would probably like a copy, too."  
Stiles blushes and turns to toss his dirty laundry in the hamper and hang his damp towel on the rack on his door. "Right, copies to you and Lydia."  
"What's wrong?"  
Derek sets down the book he's been holding and focuses on his host, who closes the door and goes to sit on the edge of his bed. "Nothing." Derek rolls his eyes.  
"You're lying."  
"Look, if I tell you about the talk I had with the hunters, will you leave it alone?"  
"For now, maybe."  
It's as good as Stiles thinks he's going to get from Derek, so he nods. "I ran into them by your old house when I was out for a run. They apparently met with Peter," Stiles can't keep back a shudder at the memory of Peter touching his neck, "and talked with him about... well, they didn't say, but they knew he used to be dead. Honestly, they're pretty slow. They're going to drive up to the hospital tomorrow to talk to the only survivor, but I told them what was in the report he gave to my dad. They're scared of me."  
Derek raises his eyebrows and his lips quirk up. "Really."  
"No, really. Giggles - damn, I still don't know what his actual name is; Allison just told me they call him Lucifer, of all things - kept trying to edge between me and Sam - the giant who looks like a moose - until Sam kind of... brushed fingers with him, and he calmed down," he explained. "The other weird one, Cas, kept doing the same thing, the other day."  
"Right. Well... You need to tell me when you meet with them." Derek leans back in the chair and crosses his arms over his chest. Stiles momentarily gets caught up looking at the way his companion's Henley stretches at the shoulders - purely scientific, honestly - but gathers his composure before it gets awkward.  
"It wasn't like I planned to meet with them, Derek," Stiles retorts.  
"I don't trust them, Stiles, and you can't blow me off and then show up reeking of hunters! You can't pull shit like you did on the phone today, not with me, got it?" Derek's voice is low and dangerous and he stands up at the same time Stiles pushes himself to his feet.  
"Maybe you shouldn't just disappear when we need to talk about things, then, or at least text me and tell me why you just up and disappeared." Derek opens his mouth to reply, but Stiles is on a roll. "And also, could you maybe not expect me to just, hand my research over to Lydia and you guys without so much as a 'Thank you, Stiles, this is brilliant!'? But, hey, why don't I just give the stuff Deaton gave me to Lydia and let her translate it, because she's perfect and could probably learn to translate Old English in a weekend and still have time to get her nails done."  
Stiles doesn't resent Lydia that much. He resents that his friends seem to include him as the slightly-less-brilliant-and-perfect-in-every-way second-best version of Lydia. It's probably just him being stupid, he knows that, but he also knows that it's unhealthy to bottle all of that inside. If no one knows what they're doing, they can't fix it.  
"Oh, shut up, Stiles, you're being ridiculous."  
"I'll call you if something comes up, alright? I'm going to Allison's."  
Derek looks like he might comment, but chooses not to at the last minute, opting instead to walk to the window and jump out in silence, leaving Stiles to stew.

He gets to Allison's and is glad to see that her dad's car is gone, although the Impala is parked in the driveway. They sit in the den and spread out their homework, but it only takes a few minutes before Allison decides Stiles needs to vent more than do physics.  
"I swear I'm going to poison his coffee next time he talks to me like I'm just a convenient researcher when Lydia's busy," he says, punctuating his statement with a bite of the pastry Allison produced. "I just wanted to do something that was mine, you know?"  
"Stiles, I don't think Derek or... Anyone, really, views you as a replacement when Lydia is busy. After all, Deaton gave YOU those texts, not Lydia, so he obviously wanted YOU to have them." She hands him another pastry.  
The sound of a car pulling in makes them drop their heads back to their homework and they're looking for math errors when Chris Argent walks in. "Stiles," he greets. "Does your dad know you're here?"  
"I texted him, but I'm actually planning on leaving, once Allison and I can figure out where one of us went wrong."  
They make small talk for a moment before Chris disappears into the house and go back to looking for their math error, which turns out to have been a missing negative. At the door, Stiles waves cheerfully to Sam, who is at the top of the stairs and pauses. "Hey, I have something for you," the tall man says. "Hang on. You got Skype?"  
"Yeah."  
"Could you give me your Skype name so I can pass it on to my friend Kevin?"  
"The one you talked to on the phone the other day?"  
"Yeah, he has some thoughts about the werewolves. I could pass it on to you, but I figure it's probably easier to just let you two talk, so you can ask him any questions you want."  
Stiles walks up the stairs and hands Sam his phone. "Just add him from my phone," he says. Sam raises his eyebrows at something he sees on the phone, but Stiles really has no idea what's there, given that he silenced it as soon as he got in the car to drive to Allison's.  
"Alright, I'll talk to him later. Gotta drive home before my dad starts to worry about where I am. Allison, I'll see you tomorrow?"  
He doesn't even bother looking at his phone until he gets home.

 **From Erica Reyes** : What the hell did you do to Derek?  
 **From Erica Reyes:** He yelled at Isaac as soon as he walked in.  
 **From Erica Reyes** : Isaac, Stiles!  
 **From Asshole:** wat happened w derek?  
 **From Asshole:** isaacs @ my house  
 **From Erica Reyes:** Isaac LEFT, Stiles!  
 **From Erica Reyes:** What did you do??  
 **From Boyd** : sorry about erica. can't get my hands on her phone.  
 **From Erica Reyes:** Why aren't you answering?

 **To Boyd:** Have you considered murder?  
 **To Erica Reyes:** Ask him that.  
 **To Asshole:** He's an asshole.  
 **To Asshole:** Derek, not Isaac.

 **From Erica Reyes:** I can't believe you think I'm THAT stupid.  
 **To Erica Reyes:** A man can dream.

 **From Boyd:** once or twice  
 **From Asshole:** i thought u liked him  
 **From Asshole:** ??

 **To Asshole:** I'll sort it out.  
 **To Isaac Lahey:** Sorry about Derek. I'll work it out.  
 **From Asshole:** ok

 **From Erica Reyes:** Sort it out, Stilinski.  
 **From Erica Reyes:** And apologize to Isaac.

 **To Derek Hale:** Hey, sorry about today.  
 **To Derek Hale:** I was totally out of line.  
 **From Derek Hale:** We'll talk tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh gosh, guys, I am so sorry that this took so long to put up!! :( Things have been pretty hectic this summer!  
> I really hope you guys forgive me~


End file.
